The Stepford Ratatouille
by PutMoneyInThyPurse
Summary: Alfredo appreciates his unusual family.


Notes:

For 'Colette Tatou' here on FFN, who inspired this whole thing.

This is also for my wonderful Leviathan, who knows what I've lifted from him where. 

Note to all wonderful readers who are awaiting more _The Challenge_, I promise to have more out soon. Just suffering from a disgusting cold AND sore throat on top of bronchitis; thus, you can blame this fic on the antibiotic. Or not. is spectacularly disoriented Am singularly unused to behaving like sugar-high adolescents on FFN. It has a kind of liberating pleasure. Cold medicines! Wheeeee! falls over backwards

* * *

Alfredo awoke to the delicious smell of crepes wafting up into the bedroom. "Mmm…" he murmured sleepily, reaching over for Colette. His hand, though, brushed the empty sheet. "Huh?" _She must be downstairs with Little Chef_, he thought, slipping his _pantoufles_ on and padding downstairs, rubbing his eyes. 

The first thing he noticed was that the house seemed… strange. It smelt… not clean, it always smelt clean, but as though someone had gone overboard with the Ajax and the _eau de __Javel_. And what had gotten the living-room looking like something out of _Elle Décor_? He'd wiped down the coffee table last night last night before he went to bed, but now the wood was polished to a deep, professional shine, their magazines fanned out on the gleaming surface, and an immense bouquet of perfectly trimmed flowers took up pride of place – not Colette's usual reserved tulips or white roses but a showy, ornate display of chrysanthemums perfectly color-coordinated with the colors of the couch and carpet. The parquet glistened with floor wax, the windows glittered, and the smell of cleaning products was so thick in the air it almost drowned out the smell of the pancakes. He wasn't sure he liked the house like this; it made him feel somehow inadequate. He hoped they weren't expecting some super-important company Colette forgot to tell him about… 

Cautiously, he tiptoed into the kitchen.

"_Bonjour, mon petit chou!"_ Before he could react, Colette flung herself into his arms, lilting in an extremely melodious voice, "And how is my man today?"

"Uh… I'm.. fine… thanks," Linguini stammered. Disengaging from her embrace, he began, "Colette, what's going… GAH!"

Colette… wasn't Colette. Not the Colette he knew, anyway. Her shiny, perfect bob was unrecognizable; it had been set in pin-curls. All he could see was curls, curls, curls, everywhere, framing her face and giving her a pert, pretty, girlish look. Half of it had been pinned up, and he noticed blonde highlights glittering in its depths. She smiled at him, and with a mild shock he saw that she was more heavily made-up than he'd ever seen her. She'd always used a hint of blusher and added little touches to enhance her lips and eyes, but now the heavy _fond de __teint_ on her face, the mascara lengthening her lashes, the shiny red on her newly pouty lips, made an alluring creature of her, a combination of a sex kitten and a sultry bedroom goddess – and a total stranger.

"Colette…" he began, and stopped. He took a step back.

"Do you like the way I look?" She laughed girlishly and pirouetted, and now he saw that her figure looked somehow different, too – she must be wearing some kind of push-up bra and some kind of corset that made her look quite different from her normal self, more like the girls whose ads he saw on the Metro: "3615 SABRINA". He was sure it must be sexy, but it wasn't the way she normally looked, and he didn't understand, and he was alarmed. And what was with the apron she had on? Powder pink, with lace and double ruffles on the shoulders and down the sides, and beribboned pockets and more lace and frills down the hem…

"Why're you so tall all of a sudden?" he blurted.

"You didn't notice?"

He looked down, and too late, he noticed she was wearing heels – not the modest affairs she sometimes wore to smarten up, but full-fledged ten-centimeter stilettos. Aw, no! Cardinal Sin Number One: He hadn't noticed her new shoes. Alfredo clamped his eyes shut, expecting to get a towel or something thrown in his face, then cautiously opened one eye a crack when it seemed apparent he wasn't about to get beaned – not in the next few seconds, anyway. Time for damage control. "It's not that I don't _like_ them," he stammered, "it's just they took me by surprise is all…" It sounded lame, even to him. He cringed.

But all he got in return for his comment was a big, innocent smile. "I'm so glad," Colette sighed softly. "If you don't like them, I can change. I don't want to wear anything you don't approve of."

_"What?"_ Alfredo's heart clenched and he put out a hand to feel Colette's brow. "You feeling okay, Colette?" At this point, he wouldn't even mind getting something thrown at him for his implication that she was _non compos mentis_, as long as she was okay.

But the fluttery lashes just batted themselves at him again. He noticed she was wearing heavy eyeshadow. "What," she purred, "I can't make myself pretty for my man without you thinking I'm sick?"

Alfredo gulped, now distinctly nervous. "A-a-a…" He took another step back, slightly faster this time. Perhaps he should find out what the occasion was. "Colette," he stammered. "Are.. are we expecting company?"

She took a step towards him. "_Non, cheri_," she murmured. "Unless you want to invite someone over."

Huh? "No," he shook his head, confused, "it's just… the house is so clean… I don't mean it usually isn't, but it's so… so shiny and… and…" He flapped his arms helplessly.

"This is just for you," she smiled. "Why should you have to live in a pigsty? I've been remiss in my wifely duties, but I've turned over a new leaf." She pinched his nose playfully. "Now you can invite your buddies over without worrying about what the house looks like."

"My _buddies?_" Alfredo frowned. Ego did come over sometimes, but he hardly qualified as 'buddies'… and he doubted if little Chef's relatives, especially that big rat who liked to come over and watch the pro wrestling, could really care less what the house looked like. Still, it was never a good idea to antagonize Colette, even if it did seem like she'd fallen on her head this morning, so… "Uh… okay."

Pulling back the chair with one lace-trimmed arm, she placed a platter of steaming crepes on the table with the other and gently guided him into a sitting position, placing the knife and fork in his hand. That in itself was unusual – why wasn't Little Chef making breakfast? – but any questions he might have had were stopped cold by Colette's next honeyed words: "Hurry up and eat your breakfast, _mon amour_. You'll be late for work."

Linguini froze. "You're not coming in to work?"

Shrill peals of girlish laughter sounded. "Oh, really, Alfredo! You know I've given up work."

His brain was refusing to process this. "You mean – you've found another career? You don't want to be a chef anymore?"

She smiled gaily. "I _have_ found another career. It's being the perfect _maîtresse__ de __maison_! And as for being a chef, what better way than to cook for my husband and my family?"

Alfredo dropped the cutlery with a clatter and stood up so violently the chair crashed backwards. "You're not Colette," he declared in a trembling voice.

But she just smiled. "That's right! I'm not Colette, I'm a whole new me. I'm happy now, and I'm healthy, because I understand what's important in life."

"Yes, your… your career," he stammered, half thinking of picking up the knife to use as a weapon, and then thinking better of it; a few eggs short of a carton she might be, but Colette was the undisputed knife-fighting champion.

"That's right!" she replied, but before he could sigh with relief, Colette went on, "My career as a homemaker. That's what's important, my husband, and my family, and making a perfect home. It's a lesson every woman should learn. Alfredo, can you ever forgive me for not seeing so long that the most important thing in a woman's life should be to please her man?"

Alfredo stumbled over the chair and picked himself up, scrambling backwards in terror towards the door partly on his hands and knees, a trembling finger pointed straight out in front of him to ward off the woman with the hourglass figure in the frilly apron. "You stay away from me," he declared loudly, his voice shaking. "Little Chef! Somebody! Police! HELP!" He turned tail and ran for the front door, relieved to see a uniformed _gendarme_ standing there as soon as he flung it open. He didn't even stop to question this miraculous occurrence, he just welcomed the man in. "Oh, _Constable_, thank Heavens! You've got to help me."

"What seems to be the problem, Monsieur?" the policeman asked as Alfredo dragged him into the kitchen. He stopped short at the sight of Colette. "Bonjour, Madame."

"It's my wife!" Linguini yelled, wringing his hands. "She's not my wife! She looks like her, and she's got her voice, but she's an impostor, Constable! She's an impostor!" His voice was rising to a shriek, and he knew he sounded hysterical, but he didn't care.

The man was backing away from him now, Alfredo noticed with a sinking feeling. "Really," he said dryly, casting an appreciative glance at the curly-haired Colette, the picture of the perfect homemaker, standing demurely with her hands at her sides, a plate of steaming crepes on the table before her. "And on what do you base this suspicion?"

"It's not a suspicion, it's a fact!" Linguini yelled, nearly tearing his hair. "She says she wants to stay home from work to take care of me and be the perfect housewife…" The gendarme looked at Alfredo as though he were the one with a screw loose. Near tears, he shrieked the final, incontrovertible evidence: "And she's wearing a FRILLY PINK APRON!"

Colette giggled.

The policeman smiled.

And now, to Linguini's despair, the policeman was closing his notebook, putting it away in his pocket. "I'm sorry, Monsieur," he said sternly, "but if that's all you are able to say, then…"

"Little Chef!" Alfredo yelled, in a brainwave. "He knows her – he'll vouch for what I say!" It didn't seem to matter in this moment that his witness was a rat, or that he couldn't speak human – he had to save his sanity. "Little Chef! Little Chef!" he called.

"Who, may I ask, is Little Chef?" the constable asked. "Your son?"

"No," Alfredo answered, "he's…er… It's hard to explain." He'd never realized, before now, how much he depended on Colette to answer the questions when they were in a situation like this; usually, she would be right there taking care of things, not standing there and simpering like a Watteau. "He's our pet rat," he finally admitted, shamefacedly.

The policeman stared, but it was Colette who finally spoke, letting out a squeal of disgust. "Eugh! The rat!" Alfredo stared at her in shock as she went on. "You think I would ever allow a rat to disturb your spotless home?" Colette asked. "_Ah, non_! I disposed of him."

Alfredo's eyes were nearly falling out of their sockets. "You _what_?!"

Before his eyes, she bent low and reached behind the garbage pail. In a moment, she straightened up, holding aloft a transparent plastic baggie containing the curled-up, dead body of a little bluish-gray rat, his poor eyes expressionless and staring, his little hands folded under him, his mouth slack and hanging open.

"NOOOOOOO!"

* * *

Colette's startled awake by Alfredo jack-knifing up straight out of sleep, screaming like the damned. "Hey!" she gasps, fumbling for the bedside lamp. He's stopped screaming now, blinking disorientedly like a lost child, his hair tousled, his eyes wide and agonized. She sits up and gathers him into her arms. "Shh, it's just a dream. _Tout __va bien__, tout __va bien__chéri__…_" 

"Colette?" he chokes, then he's hugging her tightly, fiercely. Then he jumps out of her embrace like an Olympic hurdler. "Little Chef!" he yells. Before she can register properly, he's pounding down the stairs to the landing. "Little Chef!"

_"__Qu'est-ce qu'_…" She gives up, pulls on a dressing-gown, and shuffles out onto the staircase. Illuminated by moonlight, a strange sight greets her: Alfredo holding _le Chef_ to his heart and weeping real tears of what she hopes is relief, and _le Chef_, blanket trailing from one hand, looking most put out at having been rudely awakened. When he sees Colette, he gestures clearly up to her: "Get this maniac off me!"

She climbs down the few steps slowly, starting to smile at the picture before her. Alfredo sinks to the staircase, sitting on a step, drawing his knees up to his chest, slowly releasing his grip on the Chef, and she sits down beside him, putting an arm around his shoulders. "It must have been a terrible nightmare, chéri," she says gently.

He lets out a shuddering breath. "_Yeah_."

"Want to talk about it?"

His big, vulnerable eyes look from her to _le petit Chef_, now resignedly perching on Alfredo's knee; the Chef makes a gesture of "Yes, do tell us, I can't wait to hear why you woke me in the middle of the night" that isn't entirely unsympathetic. He snuggles into her shoulder and strokes the Chef's back with a finger. "Okay," he breathes, "but promise me you won't laugh at me?"

"Of course not," she says, meaning it. _Mère de Dieu_, she loves this man so much. If he ever knew how much like a five-year-old he looked right now… The Chef nods 'yes, I promise'.

Alfredo takes a breath. "And promise me…"

_"__Oui__chéri__?" _

"Promise me you won't ever change."


End file.
